Whole Food Supplements to Amend an Empty Harvest

It’s becoming harder and harder to get all that your body needs from diet alone. Sad but true. Not with fast food pervading most dinner tables, modern farming practices emphasizing quantity rather than quality and people eating on the go, in a rushed and frenzied state. So what do you do to ensure your body has the resources it needs to face all the challenges that life presents? Supplements, right? Ah, if it were only that simple. You may be aware of all the research coming out that supplements don’t help prevent the onset of disease and may have even heard that they produce nothing more than expensive (and colorful) urine, but this too is only half true. Let’s untangle this issue, shall we, piecing together the puzzle to show how supplements fit into the befuddling equation of health.

What Makes a Clock Tick? | Synthetic vs. Whole Food Supplements

Hey, what time is it anyway? You turn to your watch, a complex of working cogs and gears, minute, hour and second hands working in concert to churn out the answer. But if I were to ask you which piece specially makes your watch a watch—which gear or hand, that is—you’re likely to remark matter-of-factly that the sum of the parts makes it a watch. The watch becomes a watch by virtue of all its working pieces.

This is precisely the quandary with synthetic, man-made supplements. We’re all aware that oranges contain vitamin C, but so does Kool-Aid, albeit in the synthetic form of ascorbic acid. However, the synthetic vitamin C in Kool-Aid is only a piece of the vitamin C complex, much like the hands of the watch are only a piece of the watch. What makes vitamin C work inside our bodies is the complex; all the other factors in the food which are naturally present in conjunction with ascorbic acid. Ascorbic acid alone is no more effective at warding off illness than a watch battery is at telling time. And taking a synthetic form of vitamin C can throw off the delicate balance within your body for other nutrients, like iron and B12, potentially leading to health problems over time.

Compounding things further is the source of where most synthetic vitamins come from. Unsavory ingredients such as genetically modified corn, coal tar, human waste, ground rocks, shells and petroleum byproducts are not uncommon. Most of what goes into synthetic vitamins are things you would NEVER consider food in nature. Who wants ground rocks with a side of coal tar for dinner?

No matter how hard we try, nothing man creates in a lab will ever be as complete as its whole-food counterpart in nature. This is why whole food supplements are the gold standard to support and overcome deficiencies in the body. They are the complete package, bringing balance back to a body out of balance, amending the effects of a diet founded upon years of empty harvests.

Identifying Synthetic Vitamins

The bottle rests in your hand, well designed and colorful with perloined images of nature on its face, and a label touting “food supplement” or “immunity support”—but how can you tell whether you’re dealing with whole-food or synthetic? For starters, check to see if the label contains the following:

Nutrients in salt form, indicated by the words “ate” or “ide”, such as calcium carbonate, magnesium oxide or dl-tocopheral acetate (synthetic vitamin E). By synthesizing these nutrients in salt form, you are trading stability at the expense of bioavailability. The body doesn’t recognize nutrients in this form and has to do more work to make use of them.

No food source listed on the label. This is the biggest indication, since all whole-food supplements list the food concentrates on their respective label.

Where Whole-Food Vitamins Fit into Your Life

So, when you read reports on why supplements don’t effectively prevent illness, keep in mind that the studies involve synthetic or man-made supplements, which contain only marginal value and, in my opinion, are incomparable to food. Studies conducted with people eating incomplete diets, supplementing with incomplete supplements shouldn’t show benefits for preventing disease, and they don’t. What do you suppose would happen if we gave people nutrient-rich diets as a foundation and used whole-food supplements as they were intended: to supplement an already proper diet. What you have here, ladies and gentlemen, is true prevention!

Supplements to Support Back Pain

Glucosamine Synergy – Helps alleviate inflammation in the joints, while supporting cartilage synthesis. We use this in patients with arthritis, especially with knee pain that doesn’t respond fully to chiropractic care alone.

Ligaplex II – This contains the raw materials needed by the body to strengthen the spine and is used to support the muscles, discs, tendons and ligaments.

B6-Niacinamide – Provides support to the nerves and is especially helpful in supporting carpal tunnel and sciatic nerve issues.